Sarah Barber BA Philosophy, 2007

Java Web Developer

Hi, I'm Sarah Barber and I studied BA Philosophy within Philosophy at the University of Southampton.

Studying philosophy at Southampton turned out to be a very broad experience - I learned many things about history, science, language, morality, politics, metaphysics and meaning itself.

Studying philosophy at Southampton turned out to be a very broad experience - I learned many things about history, science, language, morality, politics, metaphysics and meaning itself. This has contributed to a love of learning new things, which has enabled me to move into further study and later a profession in software development, which is not as entirely unrelated to my degree as you might at first think.

I was interested in the philosophy of mind and the nature of biological life and so went on to study for an MSc in Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems at Sussex University which covered these areas, as well as cognitive science, evolutionary theory and artificial intelligence. This course also helped me improve my programming abilities and I now work for a publisher of academic journals as a web developer.

My philosophy degree has given me numerous skills which I use in my new profession. The modules in Philosophy of Language and Logic helped greatly when I had to learn programming languages such as Java and C. Formulating my ideas in clear written essays has also given me the tools to present information clearly and I am able to think about ideas in a structured way to avoid contradiction and ambiguity when talking to my colleagues to establish their requirements for a new computer system or feature.

I don’t know if I will always work as a programmer but whichever direction I take I know that my philosophy foundation acts as an excellent basis for branching out into new fields.